CALEB
Two weeks have goneby and I’m still avoiding Piper as much as physically possible. On morning shifts, I leave thirty minutes earlier than I need to, just to avoid seeing her in the kitchen preparing breakfast.
She committed insurance fraud. But that isn’t the worst part about all of this.
Whenever she’s near, I feel okay with the fact that she risked the lives of two operational units. I shouldn’t feel okay about that.
We arrange childcare for the kids in cordial voices like we’re back to being strangers, and it fucking hurts. I’m concerned, not about what she did, but how she always makes me feel. My cock is more interested in being inside of her. My arms itch desperately to take her into my grasp and never let go.
And that’s the most dangerous part about all of this.
Control slips every time she’s in the vicinity.
I shower and dress earlier than I need to for the morning shift, and head downstairs to eat oatmeal in an empty kitchen. Thekids and Piper are still sound asleep, but I can hear the distant sound of laughter coming from…my own fucking mind.
Piper and Ellie get on like a house on fire—pun not intended.
And Sonny has started looking up to me like a father figure. I step in if Piper needs a hand with the discipline, and he listens. To me. Last week he even asked me if I wanted to play soccer, and we booted the ball back and forth all afternoon.
Ellie will forever have my heart. But it was nice to play around in the back yard and do something that doesn’t involve hair.
Piper takes the seat in the hairdresser’s chair now.
I stack the dishwasher and spend the next ten minutes remembering the way Piper bent over it to slot in a plate.
Fuck.
On my drive to work, I step on the gas. I wake up every morning retaining an unhealthy amount of sexual frustration, and it needs to stop.
As of the past two weeks, James Taylor hasn’t paid us a visit, but I’m sure he will be inconveniencing my house with another knock at the door soon. I will continue to stick up for Piper every time he comes at her with his indirect threats, but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever be okay with what she did.
Distance is the only thing that can save me now from crossing over my moral line. I can’t be with a woman who risks lives for money.
There are other ways.
But I still can’t shake the gut feeling that she didn’t do this. I’ve had Piper Hart on a pedestal for nine years. She could do no wrong in my eyes.
But as I snake through pine trees on the way to work, I realize that it’s impossible for anyone to be perfect. I knew her back then. But that was six months. Not a lifetime.
I have my own faults. So does she.
Does that make what she did forgivable?
I press on the brake, slowing down as I veer around a sharp bend. To others who don’t work in fire and rescue, committing a insurance fraud is probably nothing.
But I watched that building engulf Gareth—my lifelong friend and partner, and knew that I could never forgive that kind of thing.
I park at the station and hop out of my truck. Being the first one in the station means that I get to pace back and forth for a while.
I’m desperate for a barista-made coffee. Bean There always roasts their coffee to perfection, but if I step in that coffee shop, I risk seeing Piper’s co-workers. And her friend Jess sure likes to talk.
As I wait for the kettle to boil, I try to capture some of the thoughts rushing through my head. Distance is what I need, as much as it kills me to be at arm’s length from Piper. She’s determined to leave my house. I should be determined too. That’s why I helped her search for some new properties last week, keeping my distance of course.
But our hands are unfortunately tied until James Taylor decides to settle this investigation.
“Rourke.” Keller looks at me like I’m going crazy. “A fire station is no place to get in your morning steps. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Nothing is going on, sir.”
